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Comment by cjpearson | Hacker News Reader

The linked post on Take Take Take is interesting. Magnus Carlsen created a chess.com competitor and eventually sold it to chess.com and became a sponsor. While working as a sponsor he then created a new chess.com competitor.

I'm a Lichess patron and happy to see them get support, but I do feel a bit bad for chess.com in this case. Magnus is such a big figure in chess that organizations like FIDE and chess.com feel they have no choice but to accommodate his whims, but that doesn't come with any guarantees. I hope Lichess does not find themselves in a poor position if Magnus decides to "alter the deal".

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> I do feel a bit bad for chess.com

I'm sure they'll be crying all the way to the bank.

> I hope Lichess does not find themselves in a poor position if Magnus decides to "alter the deal".

I also hope they manage to avoid becoming dependent on whatever this deal grants them.

They have a choice: study chess and beat Magnus. Until then I will care about Magnus (and lichess) more then those businesses.

The best thing they did was that they bought an amazing domain name.

> FIDE and chess.com feel they have no choice but to accommodate his whims

FIDE and chess.com did behave pretty shitty sometimes and I think its good Magnus is in a position to counter them a bit.

I don’t. Everyone ends up affected by the whims of a celebrity in this case.

Magnus has said multiple times in the past - through the predecessors he owned or was involved with that he is not involved in the business side much at all; he's mostly an investor and a promotional actor. Of course they didn't do this without his agreement. He's always been a fan of Lichess too and played lots of their tournaments.

Business is business. Non-competes expire. Don't waste your feelings on chess.com.

From TTT:

> Magnus Carlsen, co-founder of Take Take Take, will not be actively promoting the platform at launch. With Take Take Take now offering a full play and learning experience, it enters territory that conflicts with his ambassador agreement with Chess.com. He remains a co-founder and the company's largest shareholder, and the team expects his involvement to resume once those contractual constraints change. For now, the product will have to speak for itself.

All large systems are inherently weak when one individual has an outsized influence on their outcomes. The solution is not to hope Magnus is altruistic, but to not allow Magnus (or any individual) to drive meaningful outcomes directly or through their combined influence/followings.

Magnus "drives meaningful outcomes" because he's really good at chess and members of the public enjoy watching him play, so various chess-related businesses will pay him money for sponsorship. How do you propose to "not allow him" that influence? Ban all use of people's names in marketing and products?

My commentary goes above and beyond just Magnus. Re: Magnus. Sponsorships are fine. Him making money is fine. He shouldn't be able to dictate the rules of the game or the platforms by which it is played. IMO.

He's not the first person to be "really good at chess".

It's a broad statement meant to mean "celebrities have too big of a platform and too much influence over the average joe".

Magnus doesn't "dictate the rules of the game or the platforms by which it is played", so I'm not sure what your point is.

You think Magnus should be forced to participate in chess events he doesn't enjoy / doesn't like the format of? Or you think organizations like FIDE or chess.com should be blocked from trying to entice Magnus to participate in their events?

Please be more specific and concrete.

Well for the chess world, open source world (BDFL), etc probably okay. For real world governments...

Thank you being a rare sensible voice on this topic. The fanboyism of chess fans is insane these days. I get that the average age of chess fans these days is very low, probably 14 or so, but it’s still pretty annoying.

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